Free Language Courses
Many free language courses are language specific (i.e. only Spanish or only Japanese) and so these sites will appear on the page for that particular language. This page will include the free (or partially free) language courses that have content for multiple languages.
Mango languages is an excellent free resource for learning vocabulary, phrases and pronunciation of words.
Languages included are Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish, Japanese, French, German, Italian, Greek and Chinese Mandarin.
Mango Languages has a very attractive and easy to use interface and offers four choices of lesson style: Main lesson, condensed lesson , vocabulary review or phrasebook review. The full Mango lesson library holds 100 lessons for each language but only 50 of those are available for free, this still allows you to learn 1100 words though and is well worth making use of. You do have to register but this is a painless exercise.
Mango's lessons join written text with audio to produce a quite effective learning tool. The lesson begins with a simple phrase written in both English and the target language. The narrator then introduces the words in English and a native speaker translates the phrase. You can hear the phrase spoken as many times as you wish before you move onto the next slide. One nice addition is the colour coding: Each part of the phrase is a different colour, the same colour as its corresponding part of the sentence in the other language. This helps you see how the grammar is structured. Along with this, if the script is non-Roman, you can hover over each part of the sentence and see the transliterated version so you know how it is said (as you can see above). As you continue through the slides, there is a lot of repetition and review of previous vocabulary which sometimes makes it seem a little slow, but I am sure that the repetition is very effective for memory retention.
Overall Mango is a good source of vocabulary to start you off. I don't think you can get too far with the free course, but 1100 words is still an impressive amount and for a free course mango should definitely be used.
LiveMocha is a must join course whatever language you want to learn and whether you want to use their language learning course or not. LiveMocha is a social learning program: As well as incorporating learning software it allows you to connect with native speakers around the world to practice your new language. LiveMocha consists mainly of 3 parts: Learn, Practice, and Share. Learn is the language course that will help you learn vocabulary and sentence structure, Practice and Share both allow you to test your knowledge of the language with others in the community. Learn is iteslf split into 6 sections: Learn, reading, listening, magnet, writing, and speaking. These sections are remarkably similar to Rosetta Stone's method: In Learn you are given the foreign word, a picture, and if necessary a translation (something that Rosetta Stone doesn't do). In Reading you have the same vocabulary but must choose the correct picture from the written foreign word. Listening is the same again but this time the word is spoken. Magnet gives you a picture and the English translation and you must form the correct translated word or sentence in a box by dragging the words provided. Writing asks you to form sentences with the vocabulary you learned in the whole lesson and this can then be checked by other people in the social network of LiveMocha. Speaking gives you a phrase to speak aloud into a microphone and upload to the community where people will check your pronunciation and give you feedback.
The learning side of LiveMocha is extensive, enjoyable and relevant and is only a small part of what the site is about. The community side of the network soon becomes the most enjoyable and useful part of the whole website. Many people want to learn English and are happy to exchange their own time and language with you if you help them with their English.
One more addition to LiveMocha is the flashcard maker: If there is a slide in the Learning section that you want to remember you can turn it into a flashcard at the click of a button and review it later.
Overall LiveMocha is an essential site for every language learner. Even if you buy many premium language courses you should still take time out to join LiveMocha.